This conversation will share insights into the ethical dilemmas of doing fieldwork in developing countries.

About this event
From the perspectives of two fieldworkers – one returning to their home country, the Philippines, and one from the UK, managing fieldwork in Ghana – we explore the moral responsibilities of fieldworkers for care, action, reciprocity and legacy building.

The issues in this webinar are cross-cutting and will be relevant for anyone working in development.

About the speakers
Originally from the Philippines, Chris Millora is Research Associate for a GCRF-funded project on Family Literacy, Indigenous Learning and Sustainable Development based at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia. He is also finishing his PhD in Education and International Development as a scholar within the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation. His doctoral research was an 11-month ethnography of the learning dimension of local volunteering by ‘vulnerable’ youths and adults in an HIV/AIDS awareness group and informal settlers’ movement in the Philippines. Chris is interested on issues around positionality when researching ‘back home’ and the ethics of reciprocity in conducting long-term fieldwork in the Global South.

Laura Picot is a PhD student at the University of Oxford. She researches how Ghanaian farmers’ gender and intersectional identities shape their climate resilience, combining qualitative interviews with quantitative survey and climate data. During Covid-19 travel restrictions, Laura has been working remotely with a team of Ghanaian researchers who are conducting fieldwork on her behalf. Laura is committed to improving equity in research and academia and has developed a Code of Conduct for Ethical and Anti-Racist Fieldwork.